La Pista Lingotto Restaurant | The streets of Turin

For the people of Turin (and perhaps also for non-Turin people), the Lingotto track is an institution and a legend. From an early age they told us that Fiat cars were tested here in those legendary and mythical years (to which we would never want to return) in which Turin was the center of the country’s industrial life. A place that is often hidden and difficult to access, but actually open to the city. A one kilometer long route on the roof of the Lingotto building which today has been reborn as a garden and which houses not only the Agnelli Art Gallery, one of the most interesting museums in the city, but also a beautiful restaurantwhich I want to tell you about today!

Aside from the fact that this is a place in Turin that has that exclusive and forbidden flavor (you are on the roof of the Lingotto, after all, what are you doing on the roof of the Lingotto? What are you doing on a roof? We are simple Piedmontese), here you can breathe an air of total relaxation and privacy. There is that feeling that no one sees you and that what happens here can stay here and the whole restaurant team maintains this feeling by making you feel totally and fully welcomed and pampered. I then had the pleasure of going to dinner with an all-female and all-bad-ass group (can you say that?) and so the dinner became truly unforgettable. And I could say that certain things we said to each other will remain up there, in the sky of Lingotto.

The menu of the La Pista restaurant

The menu at La Pista is something surprising and evocative. Dishes that bring you home and dishes that make you travel. The welcome from the kitchen immediately takes a leap forward: phyllo dough biscuits with chickpea miso and robiola from Roccaverano or with quince, steamed bao with lacto-fermented plum and watercress, papa amarilla with cheese and mustard, icerberg salad with hazelnuts and seeds. Small plates that welcome and prepare the palate. Small plates that entertain and make you discover new flavours. Crispy vegetables and little-known fermentations, but never too intense.

Then it’s the time for the leavened products, my favorite moment, I have to say. I wish we could live on only leavened products in life, without leavening and without losing the nutrients necessary to live. And here the leavened products are a dream. All prepared by Alexander And Daniel. Which arrive with a warning: “be careful, dinner has just started and there are still many dishes”.

Let’s really begin: Primofiore. A very fresh ricotta, made in house with cooked and raw vegetables. Buds and a kombucha-based vinegar. Then a ravioli with lacto-fermented potato, coconut and green curry. And then more vegetables with taro and their juice.

The proposal provides three menus, for three needs and three palates. The first is Trust, the bravest and most extravagant, contemporary and personal menu. An “act of trust” towards the chef, with refined and original combinations. Crab and horseradish, beef and sea urchins, cod and corn, bananas and bacon… The second menu is Botanic World, five completely vegetarian courses characterized by careful preparations and unexpected vegetable combinations, the one I tasted. The third is Roots, The Essentialsa menu that celebrates Piedmontese tradition and cuisine with some variations.

But who’s in the kitchen?

In the kitchen Alessandro Scardina And Daniele Lo Grasso, an inseparable duo since their oratory days. Alessandro tells us how in his family he absorbed the passion for cooking and the skills from his mother and grandmother. Grandma already had sourdough and she made bread at home twice a week. Mother worked, but she didn’t buy frozen foods and she didn’t buy semi-prepared foods, so she always cooked a lot. And from there was born the curiosity and the desire to understand more about this world of cooking. After the hotel industry Alessandro and Daniele start cooking together with the current Magazzino52 guys who were working at Tre Galli at the time. Three years, between Tre Galli and Tre Galline in which they learned all the basics. Then Sicily for Alessandro – because there was that need to return to the family origins or perhaps to be able to eat pasta alla norma, his favorite dish, as if there was no tomorrow – then London, Greece, Australia, Copenhagen , always together. Alessandro then returns to the city, Daniele goes to Spain. They meet in Turin, due to Covid, at Villa Bollina and from there they then arrive at La Pista.